The economic power of narrative storytelling

When we talk about infrastructure for a local economy, most people picture roads, sewer pipes, broadband, or parks. But there is an invisible type of infrastructure that shapes where capital flows and which businesses are considered investable. These are the narratives shape how a city talks about itself and its people.

Strong narratives rooted in abundance help attract institutional capital, spur innovation, and foster partnership and collaboration. When you treat narrative as an investable priority, you can reshape a city’s physical landscape. Seeking a quick return on investment, some fabricate narratives and relabel entire communities within cities without residents’ assent. In Denver, an intentional branding campaign shifted the name of a historically Black neighborhood (“Five Points”) to River North (or “RiNo”) with the hope that it would spur a local arts community. It worked—and brought in economic development, restaurants, and higher-income residents. But the campaign also helped the neighborhood become the second-most gentrified place in the country.

Like it or not, these fabricated narratives and relabeling are effective. If done with intention and focused on inclusive growth, they can transform a place for the better.

Our current national economic policy narrative seems to center on unpredictability and chaos. Yet the disruption of systems and expectations does allow us to create a new national narrative that acknowledges all people and every community have the capacity and potential to thrive economically.

NARRATIVE AS ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE

Creating a narrative infrastructure goes beyond city slogans or branding campaigns. Narratives about talent, ingenuity, and industriousness become local and regional history and the stuff of lore, legends, and pride, like Pittsburgh as “Steel Town USA.” Or the “Keep Austin Weird” slogan, which branded Austin, Texas, as a creatively rich and innovative place, helping it become the tech hub it is today.

When we align investment capital with the perceptions that flow from our narratives, the stories that undergird them become reality. We found three narrative components that show up in cities that do this well:

1. Shared language: These cities have a unified way of describing value, risk, and inclusion. Establishing shared language was a central tenet of our collective impact work through The Integration Initiative. When economic development officials, lenders, philanthropy, and community partners all use the same language to talk about entrepreneurs, creditworthiness, or wealth-building, it becomes much easier to identify opportunities in the same places and move resources in the same direction.

2. Shared decision rules: Cities that have repeatable methods for translating community stories into policy, programs, and investment design are creating a successful narrative infrastructure. These criteria, guardrails, and questions are standard in RFPs, loan committees, and city council deliberations—for example, asking how a project advances shared ownership or incorporates known resident priorities. Many communities work together to create standardized approaches connected to shared goals, such as Nashville, which developed a streamlined process and checklist for responding to local government RFP to support the growth of local suppliers.

3. Shared performance signals: When cities monitor what type of businesses receive funding, which neighborhoods see new investment, and how quickly new capital is deployed, they can understand how their stories influence impact. Creating a shared measurement framework and partnering with a third-party evaluator can ensure the integrity of the performance data and that the storytelling remains robust.

WHEN STORIES MOVE CAPITAL

In the Twin Cities, systemic exclusion left Black and Indigenous communities with limited wealth-building opportunities, even as new investment dollars flowed into the region. We partnered with Youthprise to launch cooperative entrepreneurship cohorts that placed young founders of color at the center of the city’s economic story. Young entrepreneurs had an opportunity to explore co-ownership models.

By shifting the focus from individual enterprises to cooperative enterprises, the city cultivated ecosystems that were not only profitable but also equitable. Co-ownership models, including worker cooperatives, community land trusts, and shared-equity enterprises, offer a tangible way to build a locally rooted economy where ownership, decision-making, and prosperity are held in common by those who live and work there.

Even though these small businesses were young and first-time entrepreneurs, they were not seen as risky investments. Instead, they were seen as critical to the fabric of the community and, therefore, to building a resilient economy.

By embedding narrative infrastructure into economic development strategies, the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region is beginning to shift public will, policy appetite, and investor perception in tandem with concrete support for cooperative, community enterprises. Since the original partnership, approximately $2.5 million in private funding has been secured for a multi-use development anchored by youth cooperative housing.

FROM STORY TO POLICY TO CAPITAL

We assume stories are our reflections on what has come before, but we can also tell ourselves future stories and speak new opportunities into being. Cities that anchor narrative language in assumptions about entrepreneurs, sectors, or neighborhoods will never grow beyond limiting constraints.

In an era of disruption and widening inequality, cities that intentionally build narrative infrastructure won’t just tell better stories; they will build more inclusive, resilient local economies that prove those stories true.

Joe Scantlebury is president and CEO of Living Cities.

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